US Supreme Court to take on the patentability of software. Can the decision reduce the incidence of troll attacks?

Mathmatical algorithms are unpatentable. Software is a collection of algorithms expressed in machine code. Under current law, only software that involves a specific machine or physical result. The U.S. Supreme Court accepted cert in a case, Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International (docket 13-298), involving financial software to mitigate risk in settlement transactions. The trial court decided the software is unpatentable because it merely uses “the abstract idea of employing an intermediary to facilitate simultaneous exchange of obligations”. the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit split on the decision, teeing it up for the Supreme Court.

Timothy Lee of the Washington Post points out that if the Supreme Court broadly invalidates the software patents, it would allieviate the nuisance suits by ‘non-producing entities’ or ‘trolls’, since most involve software. Would it discourage Congress from its present mission to identify a legislative solution to the troll problem? Hopefully not.

While technology companies would applaud any reduction in the troll population, the Supreme Court may not wish to risk the wrath of big technology since many popular devices and online destinations are protected by software patents.

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What do you get when engineers, scientists, physicians, musicians, and artists are admitted to the bar? Baker Donelson's seriously multi-talented intellectual property practice and insightful bloggers on IP issues of importance to their clients in science, engineering, technology, healthcare, education, music, media, and the arts.

Intellectual property has many facets and means different things to businesses, technology companies, colleges and universities, healthcare providers, scientists and engineers, musicians, and artists. The goal of our blog is to keep all types of creative and inventive thinkers up to date on the intellectual property issues that impact the business of creativity and innovation.